Love at first sight?
Sure, Cannes liked Blue Is the Warmest Color. But what about our experts?
Everyone knows it’s rude to talk during a movie, but once the credits roll, you’re bound to have an opinion that needs, nay demands, sharing. Every other week in Post Movies, experts, artists and movie buffs dissect a recent release. It’s fun. It’s healthier than nachos. It’s the Popcorn Panel.
This week’s panel
❚ ❚Alison Broverman is the editor of the Popcorn Panel.
❚ ❚Lindsay Anne Black is a set and costume designer, and also a notorious lesbian.
❚ ❚Peter Birkemoe is the owner of the Toronto comic book shop The Beguiling, and will be hosting an event on Dec.5 featuring Julie Maroh, author of the graphic novel Blue Is the
Warmest Color. Visit beguilingbooksandart.com for more information. This week’s film Blue Is the Warmest Color
Alison Blue Is the Warmest Color is a beautiful portrait of a young woman sorting out her identity through the dominant relationship in her life. Adèle Exarchopoulos gives a completely engaging and charged performance as Adèle. She has one of the most expressive mouths I’ve ever seen — at one point she tells Emma (the incredibly compelling Léa Seydoux) that she has a “ravenous” appetite for both food and life, and Exarchopoulos’s performance supports this statement in almost every scene, from the (now infamous) sex scenes to the less X-rated but just as titillating food scenes. I was so hungry for spaghetti by the end of this (three hour!) film!
Lindsay I loved the time and attention given to small details; it gave the feeling of the story unfolding in real time, even though it actually spanned many years. The imperfections filmmakers usually try to erase were not just included, but featured: paint under the fingernails, leaves getting caught in hair, blemishes and tags still on the backs of bras. Coupled with the wonderfully honest performances, it made it easy to forget the running time, and become deeply engaged with their respective stories. The exceptions for me, however, were some of the sex scenes. When they were so long and explicit, (and who knows how many hours of shooting ended up on the cutting room floor,) I started to feel worried for the actors, instead. In those moments, I reconstructed the theoretical fourth wall and wondered for whom those scenes were actually intended.
Peter Right from the beginning I felt the filmmaker was pushing many of his choices, running time, the length of certain shots and scenes right up to the level of my endurance, but not often surpassing it. The first extended sex scene was a tipping point where the choices at first seemed intimate and motivated by intensity of what the characters were feeling, then began to feel distant and voyeuristic. Weirdly, I only think he went a tiny bit too far, that had he held back only by 10% it might not have made me think of essays on the male-gaze. I found that his camera’s love for Exarchopoulos seemed almost obsessive, but his ability to appreciate her talking with her mouth full of food as much as the light playing through her hair made that excuseable.
Alison Not just talking with her mouth full, but those close-ups of her breathing through her mouth while she’s sleeping. There’s something very human about how the camera captures Adèle in all her physical truth, both attractive and disgusting. How did you feel about the timeline of the film? I liked how fluid it felt — it allowed you to focus more on the arc of Adèle and Emma’s relationship, rather than the logistics of it.
Peter He really does let the relationship be the centre of everything in the film. What might have made this a coming-out story isn’t followed; we’re introduced to their families, but they don’t figure in the second half. This applies to the timing, too. In the later scenes we see a new apartment, but the passage of time can be estimated by the viewer more by how the passion has cooled and resentments have crept in. Did anyone have any quibbles? I thought that paintings they chose for Emma’s art to be tacky to the point of being laughable.
Alison I had some quibbles with the overall length (I admit to checking my watch a few times over the three hours), and the sex scenes stopped being sexy after the first few moments. And I agree about Emma’s paintings — but that’s always a challenge with fictional art, isn’t it? It’s hard to match it to audience expectation.
Peter I almost felt he was trying to show she had no talent, but that was contradicted by the gallery show and other characters.
Lindsay I thought the costume designer, Sylvie Letellier, did a marvellous job of aging them. The timeline, therefore, seemed very natural to me, as I enjoyed watching the subtle changes. I definitely had some other quibbles, though. I was heavily disappointed when (spoiler) Adèle’s affair was with a man. It made sense in the context of this film, and it’s certainly not to say that it doesn’t happen in some women’s lives. It just seems it ALWAYS happens in the lives of our current cinematic lesbians. And again, for whom is that choice made? I suppose I should be relieved it isn’t the ’80s, and they aren’t murderous vampires.